


Plague Episode

by MadiYasha



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen, Sickfic, banter and antagonism: the fic, but like not au, domestic hoenn coordinator squad, i didnt write any pokemon into this but i promise its canon compliant lol, i guess theres contestshipping kinda but nothing overt, i would tag this hurt comfort but mostly its them giving each other shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 03:29:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14608323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadiYasha/pseuds/MadiYasha
Summary: A bug passes through the contest halls and knocks out half the Coordinators fixing to compete in the upcoming Grand Festival. May, Drew, Harley, & Solidad are sure they've managed to dodge it when the festival ends. Fate has other plans.





	Plague Episode

**Author's Note:**

> i should probably stamp this on every sickfic i write, but this is so fucking self indulgent.
> 
> i actually started writing this in like january and dropped it (because it was so fucking self indulgent) but then i came across the outline the other night and lost my shit laughing because the outline alone was really funny, so i was kinda like "well shit gotta revive this now" so i did. 
> 
> solidad ended up being such a straight man/mom friend in this, which isn't actually how i interpret her most of the time (that is 100% drew's job) but sometimes harley reaches what i call The Harley Threshold and hits peak annoying and she has to step in with a firm hand. i promise usually she's more chill & also terrifyingly is the only person who "yes, and"s harley.
> 
> i really wanna write more with these losers, & i'm lowkey always taking prompts on tumblr (my blog is @sonansu) so hmu there if u love them as much as i do. or don't. i'm not a cop.

Solidad threw the window open, and a gentle breeze ran through the curtains and onto her bare arms. She leaned into it, serene, letting the sound of waves up against white sands take her someplace else.

May was splayed out on the couch, scrolling through her social media feed on her PokéGear. The sheepish smile on her face told Solidad all she needed to know--that people were saying pleasant things about the girl's work in the recently-ended Johto Grand Festival. 

Beside her, Drew fiddled with something on his laptop. Knowing him, he was probably waist-deep in ideas, clacking the combinations down into a document so that they didn’t disappear from his head and lose themselves somewhere. The two younger Coordinators stayed silent, a mark of their closeness—in so many other people, May would stammer out words no matter how unnecessary, desperate to fill the void of silence with noise. With Drew, she said nothing—comfort snatching the sentences from her.

Harley hummed a gentle tune from the kitchen, stopping every couple ten notes to unattractively lick brownie batter off a wooden spoon. He was disgustingly saccharine, especially when he was baking—all flowery aprons and well-coordinated hip swivels, making an absolute mess of everything around him.

They’d decided to make this a sort of tradition to cap off all the stress and high-tension of the Grand Festival. Currently, the four of them were nestled cozily somewhere in the heavy tropics of summer, lounging in Solidad’s Lilycove beach house with filtered air blasting and a steady soundtrack of wind and horns in the harbour. Outside, waves rolled onto white sands. Young children flew kites, laughed as they rode on the backs of wailmer. 

Drew shut his laptop and leaned back, exhaling heavily, caught halfway between relief and dread. May took the cue and hit the lock button on her device, pulling herself upward and entering his space with a curious look on her face.

“What’s got you?” she said.

“I’m  _ tired _ ,” Drew told her, bluntly.

She laughed a little, leaning back into a sit beside him. “I mean,  _ yeah, _ did you expect making Top Coordinator would be effortless?”

“Have you met me?” he smiled an award-winning smile, fingers flipping through emerald bangs, a gesture that had a mind of its own.

“ _ Please, _ ” May said, and Solidad clutched her coffee cup tighter, eavesdropping on the chair adjacent. 

“To May’s point,” the older Coordinator said. “There really wasn’t much competition, this year.”

“Oh, yeah, all those last-second dropouts, huh?” May said, a finger pointed to her chin. “Man, that bug going around the contest halls got everyone fast.”

“Never seen anything like it,” Solidad agreed, and sipped her coffee. “Whatever it was, it sure was nasty. Wonder if the League got hit, too.”

Drew crooked an eyebrow, arms crossed. “...how did none of us catch it?”

May looked at him, becoming perplexed herself. “Woah, you’re right. All four of us were spared?”

“Statistically, it doesn’t make much sense,” Solidad pondered.

The conversation drolled on, and Harley was only half-listening to it as he spooned more batter into a large, square tin. In any other situation there’d be comments to make and buttons to push, but he was happy in the zone and uninterested in breaking the momentum of it. They went on and on about whatever vile disease made for the most boring Grand Festival ever, while he stole glances at the oven timer, tapping his foot impatiently as it preheated.

“Don’t say that!” May dramatically shuddered. “It reads like bad foreshadowing.”

Harley blinked a few times when his breath stuttered unceremoniously, catching him off guard. He turned away from his concoction of chocolate and sugar to sneeze—in the annoying way he always did, with long, over-dramatic buildups that trailed off into a pathetic noise that was the exact opposite of everything prefacing it. Small, and high-pitched, and daintily pressed into the back of his hand—disgustingly faux-adorable, something he’d probably practiced in the mirror. He made another quiet noise before rubbing at his face and carrying on, going for an oven mitt and straight back into his mindless song.

“Bad foreshadowing, you said?” Drew eyed Harley nervously.

He looked to May, and May looked to him, and both of them looked to Solidad, and Solidad deadpanned a single word.

“Quarantine.”

Slowly, the kids nodded, and the three of them tore off into the kitchen.

They were on Harley in an instant, three weak sets of arms wrapped in all manner around whatever part of him they could get a hold of. His spoon clattered to the floor, and Solidad didn’t have time to lament her lack of foresight in buying paper towels while Harley screamed and pawed at the open air like a skitty who’d just been thrown into a bathtub.

“Get your gritty manicures  _ off _ me!”

“This is for your own good!” Solidad shouted back. “Well, mostly it’s for ours, but—”

“I’ll  _ kill you _ , Solidad!”

“I’ll die before I let you infect all of us with your plague!”

“There  _ is no plague! _ ” Harley wailed, and May had to duck to avoid him elbowing her. “I don’t get sick! I’ve never been sick in my life! Whoever that tramp is, I don’t know her!”

“We’ve been friends for  _ ten years— _ ”

“Let me finish my  _ brownies! _ ”

May piped up. “Your  _ plague brownies! _ ”

Harley let out another high-pitched roar and managed to dip out of their collective grip, hands against the wall at incredible speed. They were about to go for him again, carry him screaming and kicking into a room where they intended to lock him until they were sure it was safe, but he had a pokéball in his hand and was holding it up imposingly.

“You’re really gonna pick a fight?” May said, as if she was meeting him for the first time.

“We’re not going to fight,” he told them, terrifyingly calm. “You three  _ drama queens _ are going to put your hands up, and I am going to put my brownies in the oven.”

The kids looked to Solidad, and she signaled approval. Her eyes stayed narrowed on Harley as he moved, his own gaze poised precariously on them while he keyed numbers into the oven. Soon as he was done, with a twirl of his hair, he stormed to the front door and threw it open.

“What are you doing?” Drew finally said, and Harley scoffed.

“If you want me gone then I’m  _ going, _ ” he told them, irritated. “Have fun in your little hypochondriac hole!”

He just short of slammed the door, keeping it from crossing the line only out of respect for the loveliness of his dear friend’s home. She let out a heavy sigh, going back for her coffee and relishing in what little warmth it had left. 

The door opened back up, and Harley was a blur of purple, shouting back to them a verbal P.S.—

“Take my brownies out in fifteen,” he said, voice imposing. “Don’t ask what happens if you don’t.”

He vanished again, this time grabbing his handbag before he sauntered off. Drew and May relaxed themselves a little, falling back onto the couch and trying not to view the current circumstance as an irresolution.

Solidad sighed again, thinking on years upon years of history with Harley. It was true, what he said—he was rarely felled by any kind of affliction—but when he was, he always acted the same, stubborn to a fault and completely unaware. Right now, she just wanted to enjoy her vacation before the next season started up.

She hoped that for everyone’s sake, Harley was right.

* * *

It wasn’t until long after the sun had set and the younger Coordinators had nodded off that Harley finally wandered back in the door. A sudden rain typical of eastern Hoenn had taken the city, the neon glow of its lights reflecting off the puddles that pooled in the dips where sidewalk met road. Solidad was tidying up the living room, every few minutes stealing a quiet glance at the kitchen and wondering how best to passive-aggressively nudge Harley in the direction of cleaning up the mess he had made before storming out.

Said mess-maker pawed for his key and shakily unlocked the door to the house, throwing off his horrendously impractical coat almost immediately upon hitting the slightly warmer air. Remnants of the thundering storm outside clung to every inch of him, and rivulets fell from his flattened hair and just short of soaked the floor where he’d been standing. He ran his palms across his bare forearms in an attempt to jumpstart warming back up, eyes curiously darting over to the burnt brownies on the counter-top.

“You had _ one _ job!” he shouted at his usual volume, and Solidad hushed him sharply, crossing her arms in the annoyingly maternal fashion she so-often did.

“The kids are  _ asleep, _ ” she chided. “Where  _ were _ you, dude?”

“Practicing appeals,” he said, plainly, staring intently at his nails.

“Practicing appeals,” she raised an eyebrow, echoing him.

“Uh, yeah?” Harley retorted. “Just ‘cause you guys are slacking before the next season doesn’t mean I have to.”

“It’s raining meowth and growlithe out there,” Solidad pointed out.

“Oh my  _ stars _ , do you guys say that in Kanto?” he cooed. “That’s adorable. You’re cute as a button, Sol.”

He went to ring out his hat all over her carpet—like friends do—but was stopped mid-way when his body had other plans and he reeled back to sneeze a couple more times. Solidad brought a hand to her face, trying to roll with the punches—usually, Harley’s antics were welcome to her and her alone. He was making it a little difficult, now.

_ If he wasn’t sick this morning, he’s definitely gone and caught himself a cold now, _ she sighed, resigned.

“Okay,” she uttered simply. “Okay. Get out of those clothes and come to bed, Harley.”

“I meant cute in a friendly way,” he retorted without a moment’s hesitation. “Sorry hon, no hetero.”

“I’ll let you have the mattress if you stop talking forever,” Solidad said.

“You drive a hard bargain,” he grinned, hanging his hat alongside his still dripping coat. 

As Harley walked past, Solidad tried to calm her nerves about his health—he seemed fine, lively as ever, even. She’d heard from anecdotes that passed through the lips of the few Coordinators spared that the bug that had been making its way through them came on fast and hit hard. Harley didn’t seem any worse for wear, just a little sniffly, if that. Maybe it  _ was _ just an unfortunate consequence of practicing appeals in the drizzling rain.

Maybe.

 

 

  
Ever the light sleeper, Solidad was woken in the early hours of the morning to the sound of someone awake and rooting around the guest bathroom. She turned over, pulling covers over her ears, desperately trying to drown out the noise and fall back into whatever sweet dream she was having. It was proving difficult, but she was determined despite the cacophony that echoed across the hall. She only faltered at an added noise to the muted uproar—the unmistakable cadence of laboured coughing, muffled into something as to keep the noise down.

Solidad threw her blankets off, sighing. Even through the walls and whatever he was attempting to mask the sound with, she could tell clear as day it was Harley.

Rubbing sleep from her eyes, the woman rose and drifted cloudlike over to the bathroom door, giving it a quiet knock when she arrived. The silence that ensued unsettled her, and she persisted, voice barely above a whisper as she called beyond its threshold.

“Harley, is that you in there?” she tried. “You alive?”

Messy footsteps doppled toward the door, and when the knob jostled and turned, it  _ was _ Harley she saw in the low fluorescent light, looking absolutely dreadful. He was peering down at her with foggy and red-rimmed eyes, cheeks flushed despite the pallor hanging around them. Sweat lined his brow, his breaths came out unsteady, and he wavered a little on his feet as he attempted to shift his weight to the doorframe.

“Sorry if I woke you up,” he uttered, oddly apologetic. His voice was half-sandpapered, half thick with congestion—his usual, high-pitched lilt utterly annihilated in its wake. It had only been a few hours, but he’d completely taken the brunt of whatever was making its way through him. He  _ was _ sick, and just like they’d said, it’d hit hard and fast.

Solidad reached an arm up, first pressing her bare palm to his cheek, then moving it to his forehead. Predictably, he was absolutely blazing from fever, and she bit her lip, sucking in a breath.

“Man,” she said, a little nonchalantly to offset her nerves. “Would it have killed you to listen to us?”

Harley was terrifyingly quiet, looking to the side rather than directly at her. Whatever spirit normally possessed him to snark back at her had left, and in its place she saw wetness crop up in his eyes. A pang of worry shot straight through her.

“Shit, okay, come on,” she backpedaled, taking his hand in hers. “Bed. Back in bed. We gotta get that fever down.”

He nodded, closing his eyes and seemingly drifting off right then and there as she led him back to the shared guestroom. There was a sort of childlike quality to him like this, but it was far more haunting than it was endearing—Harley was supposed to be obnoxiously vibrant at all times. Right now, he was wordless as could be, the only thing passing through his lips ragged coughs and quiet, delirious moans. 

She got him back into the guest bed where he laid prior, keeping her voice at a whisper so as not to wake Drew, who was in the futon directly to their side. Solidad could feel the heat practically radiating off of Harley, and an anxious jolt shot through her when he shivered fiercely despite it.

It was going to be a long week.

* * *

 

“Can’t we just let him suffer a little?”

Solidad pinched the bridge of her nose at Drew’s comment, always wondering how the same boy who could be so polite with her could turn around and test her patience to such a degree.

“What?” Drew countered. “I’m just saying what we’re all thinking.”

“He’s family, Drew,” she said. “If this was just a case of the sniffles I’d be all for letting him be overdramatic and ride it out. But it’s not.”

“I mean, I’m with you, but…” May eyed the extensive list of groceries Solidad had handed the pair. “Isn’t this a bit much?”

“May, look me in the eyes,” Solidad said, oddly serious. “Harley has not called me a single pet name. He hasn’t thrown even an inch of sarcasm my way. He’s barely even  _ spoken _ to me with that loud and ridiculous voice of his. I’m starting to forget what it even  _ sounds _ like.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “Is he  _ dying? _ ”

“I’ve seen him sick before, but it’s never been this bad,” she told them. “If he’s got whatever was going around the contest circuit, we gotta make sure it doesn’t spread more than it has.”

The two of them nodded—reluctantly, but a little more understanding, now—and set off, bound for the department store with a plethora of remedies clutched tightly in their hands. Solidad sighed as their footsteps disappeared out the open window, trying to gather herself in the wake of everything. 

Despite her maternal sort of nature, the woman had a tendency to lose her ability to be a proper caretaker when she was genuinely worried. Usually, a level head was easy to keep, but Harley was very dear to her, and she’d never seen him so utterly useless to himself. He tended to catch a cold every once in a blue moon and cry to the heavens about how he was dying, how a merciful god wouldn’t have allowed this to happen to someone so beautiful and with such a future ahead of them. He was dead silent, now.

She let out another shaky breath, filling the bowl in her hands with fresh water and carrying it back to the guest room where Harley was trying and failing to sleep off his ailment. He shuddered a little when she ran out the washcloth and pressed it to his forehead, blearily opening his eyes to look up at her.

“Are you mad at me?” he said abruptly, voice weak and raspy.

“Nah,” she affirmed, pressing the back of her hand to his cheek to see if his temperature had dropped at all. “Save it. I’m the one who’s supposed to be worrying about you.”

“Not sure I like that,” he closed his eyes. “Feels like when we were kids.”

“Then hurry up and get better,” Solidad grinned, and Harley decided that was a splendid idea, pulling his blankets over his face, willing himself to drift off.

  
  
  


It was a day or so later when May and Drew wandered into the guest bedroom to find Solidad and Harley, passed out on top of each other. She’d hardly left his side since he’d fallen ill, only ever dipping out to measure out medicine or cook soup or boil tea. Now, she was knocked out asleep, arms folded on his torso and face buried cozily within them. The sound of unsteady breathing barely emanated from the pair as they drifted.

The younger Coordinators watched as Solidad stirred a little from her dreams, swiveling over to the crook of her elbow to cough deeply and roughly into it, struggling to catch her breath in the wake of the fit. May stepped over to her side, pulling off a glove and running her bare hand over the woman’s burning forehead.

The girl said nothing, merely shot a nervous look at Drew as he stood in the doorway. His resigned tone told her that he understood exactly what her expression was saying.

“Well,” Drew uttered. “That’s not ideal.”

* * *

“I mean, would it kill you to get some entertainment in here, girlfriend? Not even a TV? If I’m gonna sit here bored to tears, I might as well get some garbage reality shows in—”

Harley had been complaining for a solid hour about the current state of the guestroom, stopping only every few minutes or so to stifle long fits of hacking into the side of his arm. His normal voice was trying to breach past the definitely lingering shreds of the sickness, and it resulted in a sort of hybrid that was somehow a million times more unpleasant. The fact that May had not strangled him with the blankets at this point was proof on its own that she deserved the world—glory, happiness, maybe the chance to eat the world’s tastiest ice cream sundae out of the ribbon cup itself. He kept on.

“—interior design nightmare. Like, not even a cutesy oceanic painting hanging up?” Stop, swivel, cough like you’re dying, repeat. “Sol, is it too much to ask you to actually decorate this place some time? I feel like I’m in church—”

Solidad, who had elected to share the bed with Harley rather than rolling out a futon of her own, buried her head into his side, voice pained and throat searing.

“Harley, please shut up,” she moaned. “My head is gonna explode.”

“Don’t you  _ have _ a bed? In _your_ room?” he countered.

“I told you, Harley,” May crossed her arms, piping up. “No one who isn’t one-hundred-percent healthy leaves this room. We’re on full quarantine!”

“Right,” he rolled his eyes. “I forgot your stupid boyfriend’s a germophobe.”

“You were  _ just  _ complaining about it,” the girl said, then immediately regretted reminding him. 

“Oh, right!” Harley chirped. “Where was I? The room’s ugly, and none of you know how to have fun, and—”

“ _ Harley, _ ” Solidad whined. “Shut  _ up. _ Take your medicine.”

He looked to her, half-dead from fever, eyes red and ravaged in large part due to his influence. The antagonistic part of him, so often the dominant voice, softened in her wake. She  _ always _ found a way to do this, either by pity or by threat, and it was both admirable and infuriating.

“Your life has been spared for today, May,” Harley told the girl, side-eyeing her as he chugged probably too much cough syrup.

May rolled her eyes, leaning back in the chair she’d pulled to their bedside and using the welcome silence to check her social media.

The door slowly creaked open and Drew meekly peeked his head in, following the gesture up by pouring so much hand sanitizer in his palm that May was absolutely sure he might straight-up drink it if she looked the other way. Metaphorically, Drew was wearing a hazmat suit.

“May, you’ve been in here all day,” he noted. “Is that smart?”

“I mean, yeah?” she shot back. “Who else is gonna stop Harley from unleashing biological warfare on the whole house?”

“I'm right here, you little—!”

“That’s just it, though,” the boy looked around nervously, spraying disinfectant he most likely pulled from the astral plane. “You’re hardly doing anything to protect yourself. You’re gonna get sick too.”

“I’m fine!” May assured him. “I never get sick. When I do I usually get over it in like a day, anyways.”

“Remember what we were talking about earlier?” Drew put a hand on his hip, still hovering outside the door. “About our conversations sounding like bad foreshadowing? This is one of those.”

“It’s really not!” May waved him off.

“It really is!” he mimicked her tone.

“Oh whatever,  _ clingy, _ ” she smirked at him. “If you miss me that much, I’ll come babysit you, too.”

“Absolutely not,” Drew said, throwing his hands up defensively. “I'm gonna go lock myself in Solidad’s room and enjoy my good health.”

“You’ll be back in an hour!” May said, eyes on her device, paying him no mind as he left.

_ Yeah right, _ the boy crammed his hands in his pockets as he made his way across the hall.  _ Keep your influenza to yourself. _

  
  
  


Drew pulled himself up to a foggy-headed sit, half buried in his futon as he pitched forward to stifle a thirty-seventh sneeze into his arm. All things considered, he  _ wanted _ to scream—but there were rocks in his head and popping candy behind his eyes, and swallowing was hard enough, so talking probably wasn’t the best idea. 

He dropped himself back to a lay, trying to ignore the growing nest of crumpled tissues that was slowly but surely forming like a fortress around him. His voice joined the cacophony of ragged cadences, weak and defeated—

“How did this even  _ happen, _ ” Drew groaned.

“You can’t fight the plague episode, Drew,” May said nonchalantly as she was handing a freshly-made mug of tea to Solidad. “The person who tries to fight it hardest always gets hit the hardest.”

“That’s not true,” he responded. “Harley got hit hardest.”

Harley, who had since completely lost his voice in the wake of all his non-stop bitching, wordlessly flipped Drew off from his bed, eyes still on his social media.

“What deity are you paying, May?” Solidad uttered, looking up at the face of the family’s little angel, still healthy as ever.

“It’s nothing like that!” she smiled. “It's simple! My resigned and laid-back attitude has rendered me immune. I’m not fighting it at all.”

Her PokéGear lit up, a sound that she’d somehow come to dislike over the last day or so. Harley had been communicating entirely through text messages, which was going about as well as one would expect.

_ You feel fine huh? _

**Cactus emoji is typing...**

_ Not even a liiiiittle sniffly? _

**Cactus emoji is typing...**

_ Not even a teeeeensy bit worn-down from all that hard work? _

May locked her device, staring him down. “You like having soup, mister? You like having food, that I made? Food that I lovingly crafted for my friend in his time of need?”

Her PokéGear chimed.

_ It’s not half bad. _

The girl looked up from the message to meet his eyes, not surprised at all to see the smuggest grin on his face she’d ever witnessed in the short time they’d known each other. She lilted her tone, sounding as cute as she possibly could.

“Oh, Harley, that’s such a nice thing to say!” she chirped. “Thank you for the compliment! I’ll treasure the praise as long as I live.”

He texted her.

_ Tonight when you’re asleep I’m gonna breathe all over you. _

May sighed, giving up her fight as she looked at him. “What do I have to do to get you to rest a little and stop being like this?”

The device lit back up.

_ I’ll take your dad’s phone number if you’re offering. _

“Harley, no offense,” the girl said, rising to her feet. “But I kinda hope you die.”

Harley continued to blow up her PokéGear, but she paid him no mind as he screamed into the metaphorical void, instead electing to walk over to Drew and kneel down to his side. He was the freshest victim and thus the worst off, with at least four blankets piled on top of him, pulled up to his eyes, and wracked with chills despite it. May touched a hand to his cheek gingerly, and it was hard to tell if the pink on his face was from the fever that still hadn’t gone down or something else entirely.

“Do you need anything?” she asked, and Drew’s heart might have melted at the tenderness she somehow snapped so easily back into. Maybe he was delirious, but she kinda looked divine in the low light of the room.

He coughed a little, finding his voice.

“Don’t leave me here with Harley.”

The girl considered the proposal. There really wasn't much point in them all staying in one room, now that everyone but the dutiful caretaker had been hit. Some fresh air outside of the stuffy prison of disease probably would do him some good. 

“Worry not, fair one,” she smiled. “Your knight in shining armour is here to whisk you away!”

On one hand, Drew thought she was adorable. On the other—

“I’m supposed to be the knight,” he protested.

“Too bad!” May said. “You’re a feverish mess and I’m the only one fit to carry you outta here!”

“May, I can walk,” the boy said as she struggled to throw him into her arms. She kept on grunting, now pulling him into what was quickly becoming an awkward sort of suplex.

“Okay,  _ fine, _ ” she gave up. The two of them rose to their feet, and May jolted forward when she saw him wobble a little too much.

“Here, c’mon,” she slipped a hand around his waist. “Hold onto me.”

Drew swallowed heavily, barely noticing the pain of it with the butterfree fluttering in his stomach. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, too shy to meet her eyes entirely.

Her pocket was vibrating incessantly. Harley’s thumbs were dancing wildly across the keys, and May pressed on and paid him no mind.

_ WHY YOU GIVING HIM SPECIAL TREATMENT? _

**Cactus emoji is typing…**

_ YOU GUYS GONNA GO MAKE OUT? _

Solidad stirred from her half-sleep to hit him hard with the spare pillow, and he silently screamed before falling back over.

* * *

Drew rolled himself over and awake at the unmistakable smell of bacon wafting through the house, and he reluctantly pulled himself out of bed to investigate, still getting used to the feeling of his feet touching the floor. He could hear the telltale laughing, then arguing, then laughing of Solidad and Harley in the kitchen, no doubt making a mess of the place and more likely than not throwing pancake batter into each other’s hair.

Harley was currently curled up in the corner by the garbage can making small whimpers, his voice only having just returned to him.

“You’re such a baby,” Solidad rolled her eyes, taking the handle of the frying pan that he’d presumably been holding.

“ _ Please, _ sister!” he retorted. “You try cooking bacon with a midriff window!”

“You designed the outfit, not me,” she gave the pan a shake.

“Grease burns are a small price to pay for looking this good,” Harley ran a hand through amethyst tresses, clicking with his tongue as he posed.

"You look like someone who auditioned for the role of the brainless scarecrow but didn't get it," she flipped the bacon over. "And now you're just wandering the studio waiting for them to announce a remake."

“Uh,” Drew said, unsure of when to insert himself into their banter. “How long ‘til breakfast?”

The pair simultaneously whipped their heads around to face him, his quiet footsteps barely registering in all the chaos of roasting both breakfast and each other. Solidad immediately pulled the pan off the burner before walking over to him, her tone more concerned than anything.

“Woah, should you be up, Drew?” she leaned down with the back of her hand against his face, checking for any lingering signs of fever. To his credit, he didn’t seem terribly warm anymore, despite the other remnants of the illness that lingered in his lungs.

“I think the worst of it is over,” he told her. 

“Well,” Solidad said, standing back up and crossing her arms. “In that case, breakfast will be served as soon as Harley gets out of my way.”

“Solidad, you’re my friend,” Drew prefaced. “But your cooking is questionable.”

“I’m here too, squirt,” Harley piped up.

“How convenient,” the boy responded. “Your cooking is divine, but you’re not my friend.”

“I’m hurt, Drew!” Harley threw a hand over his chest dramatically. “What do I have to do to get through that ice-cold heart of yours?”

In their gentle bickering, Solidad couldn't help but laugh. It's something she hadn't realized that she missed until right that second.

“Well, the snark levels are certainly back up to speed,” the woman noted. “So I’d say we probably beat this thing.”

On the couch, May was passed out beyond waking, undisturbed even by the bright tropical sun as it filtered in through the sliding glass doors. She slept soundly and deservedly, finally gaining some much-needed rest after a solid week of diligently caring for her friends, running from room to room with supplies in her arms and a duty in her heart. Even now, when all of them had recovered, she was buried among bottles of cough syrup and unused washrags, just in case someone’s fever came back with a vengeance and she had to be at their side.

The three of them took in the sight of her, the youngest of them and the toughest to break, with a soul that loved endlessly. She rolled over in her sleep, muttering out something incoherent and laden with concern, still stuck in the motions of watching over her friends in their time of need.

“Think we should wake her up for breakfast?” Solidad proposed.

“She’ll kill us if we don’t,” Harley noted.

“At this point we probably deserve it,” Drew said.

“Speak for yourself, Drewbie.”

While their quiet banter carried on, Solidad pulled the softest blanket she could find from the coat closet, draping it gingerly over the sleeping girl and brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face. May barely stirred, too tuckered out to register anything that was going on around her, even the smell of food wafting through the kitchen.

Trying to keep a far-too-telling smile of gratitude from his face, Harley slid a sizable chunk of food to the side to pass onto her whenever she decided to join the waking world again. Drew noticed, and ran a hand through his hair, and elected—for now—to keep his mouth shut.

May nuzzled her face comfortably into the covers as Solidad draped them over her with whispered well-wishes, oblivious as ever, lost in her dreams.

"Rest up, princess."

She was smiling.


End file.
